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Reporters: We loathe 2012 campaign

Reporters feel like both campaigns have decided to run out the clock. | AP Photo

When Haberman and her colleague, Alex Burns, wrote one of the first jeremiads in June, there was no shortage of self-criticism: “The endless news cycle, infused with partisanship thanks to cable news and coupled with the Internet-age imperative to produce faster, more provocative copy, has amplified every cynical and self-indulgent impulse of the political press — POLITICO included,” they wrote.

But betweenJune and September, amid the insufferable heat and the dog days of August, self-criticism turned to self-loathing. Self-loathing because somehow, for all the space allowed by print, the airtime allowed by 24-hour cable news, and the limitless real estate of the Internet, the media could not find a way to elevate the discussion and focus on what the 2012 campaign is actually supposed to be about: jobs, the economy and so on.

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“The fact is, we are under-covering the economy, we are under-covering — but you cover the campaign that is in front of you,” Todd, who frequently voices his 2012 frustrations on his MSNBC show, “Daily Rundown,” told conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham in August.

“The watercooler discussion begins with ‘Can you believe that guy?,’ not ‘Will Romney or Obama give me a lower marginal tax rate in 2014?’ So the campaigns and the ideological press keep churning it out for a hungry public,” Time magazine’s Michael Scherer wrote that same month.

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, and Shapiro all wrote their own versions of the “Worst Campaign Ever” story. Shapiro’s actually bore that headline, verbatim.

Leibovich’s piece brings the self-loathing to its apotheosis: “The treadmill existence of having to file articles around the clock, tweet nonevents as they happen and listen to the same canned speeches and campaign conference calls day after day, waiting for something, anything, to bust up the script so that you can pretend there’s news here; this can be the definition of joylessness,” he wrote.

Of course, Leibovich and other journalists could choose not to cover the gaffes and the attacks — but because the campaigns have cordoned off the candidates and failed to launch a substantive discussion, attacks and gaffes seem to be the only newsworthy items of the cycle, which only reinforces the campaigns’ desire to keep their candidate cordoned off.

“There’s no off-Broadway anymore,” CNN’s Gloria Borger, who has been covering politics for 35 years, told POLITICO. “There is a sense among the candidates — and their staffs — that nothing is off the record. And while I think we can idealize the way it used to be in the good old days, this new, high-speed news cycle has had one result none of us likes: a constant barrage of scripted sound bites and talking points, just to make sure everyone is on message, all the time.”

Readers' Comments (170)

The reason the press is looking forward to 2016 is because in 2012 we have a country that is in a complete mess and it was put there by a Democratic president. And there is not a Republican in sight to blame it on. They've had to resort to going back four years to the last Republican president and blaming it on him, despite the fact that not only are we NOT better off than we were four years ago, we're considerably WORSE off.

I think the press knows in their heart-of-hearts the disaster that is looming for the Democratic party in November. The signs are all there.

* Three Democratic mayors attack Chick-fil-A because their CEO expressed an opinion they didn't like and millions of Americans rush out on Chick-fil-A day to show their support for the company.

* The "Obama's America" film that tells the truth about what he's trying to do is a huge hit.

* Conservative books have become a fixture at the top of the bestseller lists.

* In Politico, as well as most news sites where comments are allowed, the comments are running solidly against this failed administration.

And the real topper is that this guy is the patisan press's candidate. They pushed his candidacy. They spun all the "news" stories about him in 2008 to make him look good. The same folks who were digging through Sarah Palin's trash trying to find dirt on her completely ignored Obama's radical past - his association with American terrorists, his Communist mentor, his faked birth certificate, his lack of qualifications, his lack of experience, his cover-up of his past.

The press is responisble for putting him in office. And they are respnsible for the mess that has ensued. You can't entirely blame Obama. He has done what he was capable of doing - giving speeches that sounded good. The fact that he wasn't capable of much beyond that is something that should have come out in the 2008 campaign. The fact that it did not is the fault of the left-wing partisan media. And now they're wishing for it to all go away.

Reporters, look in the mirror! You do not ask tough policy questions of the candidates nor do you impartially cover what the candidates actually say; rather you try to interpret "what they meant". You look for the gotcha moments and repeat them ad finitum. Your profession has done great harm to the public by taking the easy way out - one reporter is the same as the next spewing the same talking points over and over making the news instead of reporting it.

The Republicans have run the sleaziest, dirtiest, meanest, most evil, most disingenuous, lie filled campaign in the modern history of presidential politics. NO WONDER the press, and frankly, everyone else is sick of this campaign. After President Obama solidly defeats Mittens on November 6, the right-wing extremists in the Republican party will be broken and come 2016, the Republicans will act more like a political party again instead of a cult of plutocrat serving conservative nut jobs.

Well...duh. The media failed to vet Obama, and now they are trying to do a one sided job on Romney. Problem is the media is no longer controlled by any one entity, so there is no sense of control. the campaigns no longer need your bias, so they go around you with their messaging. Well done national media - you successfully made yourself irrelevant by sucking at your jobs.

"The reason the press is looking forward to 2016 is because in 2012 we have a country that is in a complete mess and it was put there by a Democratic president."

Were you struck on the head with a sharp object, subjecting you to complete amnesia? The complete mess WAS INHERITED by this president. Since you can't acknowledge that simple fact, you completely negate your subsequent argument.

Until you acknowledge the facts of how we got here, you cannot offer any coherent suggestions to take us anywhere.

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"And there is not a Republican in sight to blame it on."

How about we start with career politician, Paul Ryan who didn't see a Bush spending bill he wouldn't vote for? How about Mitch McConnell who said outright his number one goal was to make Obama a one term president. Or John Boehner, who walked away from the grand bargain. Or teaparty Republicans in the house who precipitated a debt rating downgrade with their 'brinksmanship' (read the report)?

Not ONE Republican? Really? Not ONE?

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"The "Obama's America" film that tells the truth about what he's trying to do is a huge hit."

Correction: It's a big hit with the right wing fringe. And had largely been debunked by fact checkers.

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"Conservative books have become a fixture at the top of the bestseller lists."

More detail needed...Conservative books have become bestsellers with the help of bulk sales, like Newsmax who gives away free books with a subscription to their site.

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"In Politico, as well as most news sites where comments are allowed, the comments are running solidly against this failed administration."

Outright false. Only the ones that lie. It's hard for us fact checkers to keep up with all the lies. And then the repeated lies. But we'll never give up.

They didn't ignore it. They investigated and found, like most other right wing conspiracy theories, that there was nothing to the propaganda. So they moved on. What you REALLY mean, is you are disappointed that the MSM didn't propagate right wing nuttery as you wished they would. That's not their job. That's Sean Hannity's job.

So I would challenge just one of the democrats to produce a "big idea" beyond Saul Alinsky demonization and distratction from any countervailing viewpoints and claiming that Romney-Ryan are "more of the same". Perhaps the best part of that "argument" is the pretend world where Democrats weren't part of the political landscape leading up to the recession (yeah, right) and ignoring 30-plus years of prosperity (after the Jimmy Carter lost years) relying on policies wholly different from Obama's and closer to Romney's. Hell, William Jefferson Clinton is a "right wing extremist" compared to this joker in the White House and his hand-picked Greek chorus of academic non-private sector economic advisors who whisper sweet nothings in his ear and then leave the White House in disgust only to take a high-paying Wall Street job as a golden parachute.

The CBO-type static scoring is perfectly suited for Obama's "economy built to last" that, sadly, IS a 1.5% GDP growth rate in perpetuity. The only potential for funding their unsustainable spending spree is more taxing and more spending. Yet none of these high-minded journalists bother to ask the obvious question about simple math and how taxing the 1% more will even remotely make a dent in the deficit. Try buying a pad of paper and pencil and doing the math you morons! We need real economic growth, not more regulations from bureaucrats, not more "forced technology" for green jobs that aren't ready for prime time and can't subsist on their own merits, not more unconstitutional presidential edicts that are more suited for the Soviet Union than for a constitutional republic.

Hell, these journalists could make their lives much more exciting if they would behave like journalists and actually ask the questions that need to be asked. But, sadly, they are as shallow as the current administration and they deserve the sycophantic journalistic purgatory they have created.

Poor babies - we all know it's totally about the media and what they personally think and who they personally love and who they personally want to see elected. God help them if they ever had to go back to actually reporting events as they exist and play out, not how they frame them.

There used to be a time when networks and CNN had hard-core journalists and reporters who filed reports from the campaign trail and then a central anchor invited political guests to provide the "flavor". Now, there's no such thing as an actual reporter in the continental USA - they're all pundits. The only place you find reporters now is in Syria and other hot spots in the middle east where they don't have time to think too much about it.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys took home nearly $1 million in Barack Obama’s 1995 class-action discrimination lawsuit against Citibank, but 183 of the 186 plaintiffs did not get a dime.

Three named plaintiffs in the lawsuit — Selma Buycks-Roberson, Calvin Roberson and Renee Brooks –- each collected $20,000. But none of the 18 ordinary, or non-named, plaintiffs that The Daily Caller was able to reach for comment reported receiving any money. This is despite a claim to TheDC by the lawsuit’s initiator, attorney Fay Clayton, that the settlement paid the 186 non-named clients between $770 and $3,250 each. [RELATED: With landmark lawsuit, Barack Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago's African-Americans]

According to the court docket, President Barack Obama was lead attorney for Roberson and Brooks, as well as the second listed attorney for Buycks-Roberson, in the lawsuit, which claimed that Citibank discriminated against African-Americans in its mortgage practices.

The settlement provided a payout for the lawyers, but only the equivalent of coupons to the 183 ordinary — non-named — African-American plaintiffs.

I have never witness such uglyness in a election from the press. Everyone that has an opinion about this President is a Racist.

Everyone is Racist,Sexist and Anti-Gay. OMG

And I have never seen a group of white homophobs complain about the race card in my life. No everything isn't racist or racism which by definitions are different, but when you try to lie steal an election, then we should be able to have an adult conversation about it.

Another meaningless,rambling pile of babble that lacks value,impact and real news. If these people loathe the campaign and think we care,they are more egocentric than I imagined. The bottom line: there guy will lose and the media mouthpieces can't subdue the building crescendo of anger and frustration directed at both the Obama team and his journalistic surrogates.

The reason the press is looking forward to 2016 is because in 2012 we have a country that is in a complete mess and it was put there by a Democratic president. And there is not a Republican in sight to blame it on. They've had to resort to going back four years to the last Republican president and blaming it on him, despite the fact that not only are we NOT better off than we were four years ago, we're considerably WORSE off.

I think the press knows in their heart-of-hearts the disaster that is looming for the Democratic party in November. The signs are all there.

* Three Democratic mayors attack Chick-fil-A because their CEO expressed an opinion they didn't like and millions of Americans rush out on Chick-fil-A day to show their support for the company.

* The "Obama's America" film that tells the truth about what he's trying to do is a huge hit.

* Conservative books have become a fixture at the top of the bestseller lists.

* In Politico, as well as most news sites where comments are allowed, the comments are running solidly against this failed administration.

And the real topper is that this guy is the patisan press's candidate. They pushed his candidacy. They spun all the "news" stories about him in 2008 to make him look good. The same folks who were digging through Sarah Palin's trash trying to find dirt on her completely ignored Obama's radical past - his association with American terrorists, his Communist mentor, his faked birth certificate, his lack of qualifications, his lack of experience, his cover-up of his past.

The press is responisble for putting him in office. And they are respnsible for the mess that has ensued. You can't entirely blame Obama. He has done what he was capable of doing - giving speeches that sounded good. The fact that he wasn't capable of much beyond that is something that should have come out in the 2008 campaign. The fact that it did not is the fault of the left-wing partisan media. And now they're wishing for it to all go away.

FoxFan: Sep. 3, 2012 - 5:36 PM EST

Oh, you guys just need to come out and tell the truth.

The reason the press is looking forward to 2016 is because in 2012 we have a country that is in a complete mess and it was put there by a Democratic president. And there is not a Republican in sight to blame it on. They've had to resort to going back four years to the last Republican president and blaming it on him, despite the fact that not only are we NOT better off than we were four years ago, we're considerably WORSE off.

I think the press knows in their heart-of-hearts the disaster that is looming for the Democratic party in November. The signs are all there.

* Three Democratic mayors attack Chick-fil-A because their CEO expressed an opinion they didn't like and millions of Americans rush out on Chick-fil-A day to show their support for the company.

* The "Obama's America" film that tells the truth about what he's trying to do is a huge hit.

* Conservative books have become a fixture at the top of the bestseller lists.

* In Politico, as well as most news sites where comments are allowed, the comments are running solidly against this failed administration.

And the real topper is that this guy is the patisan press's candidate. They pushed his candidacy. They spun all the "news" stories about him in 2008 to make him look good. The same folks who were digging through Sarah Palin's trash trying to find dirt on her completely ignored Obama's radical past - his association with American terrorists, his Communist mentor, his faked birth certificate, his lack of qualifications, his lack of experience, his cover-up of his past.

The press is responisble for putting him in office. And they are respnsible for the mess that has ensued. You can't entirely blame Obama. He has done what he was capable of doing - giving speeches that sounded good. The fact that he wasn't capable of much beyond that is something that should have come out in the 2008 campaign. The fact that it did not is the fault of the left-wing partisan media. And now they're wishing for it to all go away.

WOW.. This is the most delusional piece of horse-s-h-i-t I've read in a long time.